FEEL THE HEAT

If boost­ing your en­ergy in­de­pen­dence and get­ting the most bang for your buck fac­tor into your de­ci­sion to put a wood-burn­ing fire­place or stove into your log home, don’t let your ef­forts go up in smoke. The kind of wood you burn is just as im­por­tant as what you burn it in. ”

To re­duce fire­place emis­sions and min­i­mize cre­osote buildup, you’ll want to burn the hottest fires pos­si­ble. Hard woods, like cherry and oak, burn hot­ter than soft­woods, like pine. For best re­sults, re­gard­less of species, make sure your fire­wood is well sea­soned. Never burn wet wood. This is a sure­fire way to push smoke and emis­sions back into your room, as well as cre­ate large amounts of cre­osote, which will coat your chim­ney and could cause the kind of fire you don’t want.